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List of songs in The Banana Splits Adventure Hour
This is a list of songs performed by the Banana Splits. Like other TV rock bands like The Monkees and The Archies, The Banana Splits also had a career as recording artists. One album, three singles and two extended-play 45s were issued under the group's name. Singles (7" 45 r.p.m.) Decca 32391/1968 * A: Wait Til Tomorrow (Ritchie Adams/Mark Barkan) * B: We're The Banana Splits (Tony Powers/Ritchie Adams) Decca 32429/1968 * A: The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana) (Ritchie Adams/Mark Barkan) (Single Version) * B: Toy Piano Melody (Roy Alfred) Decca 732536/1969 * A: Long Live Love (Aaron Schroeder/George Goehring/Bobby Ronga) * B: Pretty Painted Carousel (Aaron Schroeder/Billy Barberis/Bobby Ronga) Notes * All Decca singles were issued in mono mixes. "Long Live Love" and "Pretty Painted Carousel" were not included on the We're The Banana Splits album. The single version of "The Tra La La Song" is a completely different recording from the TV version issued on the We're The Banana Splits album, and includes an otherwise unheard additional verse...unheard until it was covered by Liz Phair and Material Issue for the Saturday Morning Cartoons Greatest Hits various artist compilation CD (and TV special) in 1995. * The latter two Decca singles were issued with picture sleeves. "We're The Banana Splits" was not issued with a picture sleeve in the United States, but the German issue had a picture sleeve. Extended Play (7" 45 r.p.m.) Hanna-Barbera 34578/1969 - Kellogg's Presents The Banana Splits (The Tra La La Song) * Side One: ** The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana) (Ritchie Adams/Mark Barkan) (Album Version) ** That's The Pretty Part Of You (Carl Spencer/Bob Halley) * Side Two: ** It's A Good Day For A Parade (Joe Levine) ** The Very First Kid On My Block (Neil Sheppard/Ray Fox) Hanna-Barbera 34579/1969 - Kellogg's Presents The Banana Splits (Doin' The Banana Split) * Side One: ** Doin' The Banana Split (Barry White) ** I Enjoy Being A Boy (In Love With You) (Joey Levine/Marc Bellack) * Side Two: ** The Beautiful Calliopa (N.B. Winkless, Jr./Hoyt Curtin) ** Let Me Remember You Smiling (Al Kooper/Bob Brass/Irwin Levine) Notes These discs were sold as a set by mail-order through a Kellogg's cereal promotion. Both discs had picture sleeves with cartoon art of the characters on the front and song lyrics on the back. Like other premium records issued through Kellogg's, these discs came in a mailer sporting unique artwork (in this case, a drawing of Fleegle holding the two discs.) Six of the eight songs are exclusive to these records; "The Tra La La Song" (album version) and "Doin' The Banana Split" are the same recordings found on the We're The Banana Splits album, but appear here in alternate stereo mixes which are exclusive to this release. The songs appear here in "twin-track" stereo, with voices in one channel and the instrumental backing in the other, not unlike the early Beatles albums. (The album mixes are mixed into more traditional stereo.) Album (12" 33 1/3 r.p.m.) Decca DL 75075 (1968) - We're The Banana Splits * Side One: ** We're The Banana Splits (Tony Powers/Ritchie Adams) ** I'm Gonna Find A Cave (Buddy Scott/Jimmy Radcliffe) ** This Spot (Jay Fishman/Don Lauren) ** Doin' The Banana Split (Barry White) ** Toy Piano Melody (Roy Alfred) ** Soul (Jimmy Radcliffe/Carl Spencer) * Side Two: ** The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana) (Ritchie Adams/Mark Barkan) (Album Version) ** Wait Til Tomorrow (Ritchie Adams/Mark Barkan) ** You're The Lovin' End (Al Kooper/Irwin Levine) ** In New Orleans (Billy Barberis/Bobby Ronga/Aaron Schroeder) ** Two Ton Tessie (Aaron Schroeder/Gene Pitney) ** Don't Go Away--Go-Go Girl (Jimmy Radcliffe/Buddy Scott) Notes * There are two cover variations for the original album. First pressings did not include a copyright notice for Hanna-Barbera Productions, which was left off in error. Most first pressing copies have the copyright notice added on a yellow sticker at the bottom center of the front cover. Later pressings have the copyright notice in small black text in the lower left corner of the front cover. Watch out for counterfeit "white label promo" reproductions of the We're The Banana Splits album, produced in the mid-1990s. * This album has been the subject of another more recent vinyl knock-off, this time a supposed "180 gram vinyl" reissue from a UK outfit called Ripped Couch Records. I can report that the quality of the vinyl pressing itself is pretty good...but as the old saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out." What a hack job. First of all, let us be clear on one thing: Under no circumstances is this a legitimately licensed release. It's, if you will, a "bootleg of a bootleg." (The back cover states the album is "under exclusive license from 20th Century Box." What?) The sixteen tracks are copied straight off the 1995 Hollywood Library bootleg CD (see below), in the same out-of-sequence running order, and they sound no better here. It's also clear that whoever put this together was pretty clueless about the original album as well as the show itself; in fact, the makers probably didn't even have access to a copy of the original album to refer to when they were slapping this together. The front cover is an attempt at replicating the original front cover of the 1968 Decca album, but was not even copied from an original album cover...the front cover artwork looks like it was made from a JPEG scan yanked off the internet and blown up to album cover size. It looks like those knock-off mugs and T-shirts you see on ebaY. They didn't even get the album title correct; the word "We're" is missing from the front cover (just as well, since this is actually a compilation of album tracks and songs released on various 45s anyway), though it does appear on the spine. At the top of the front cover is the text: "Original soundtrack from the hit seventies USA television show." Nice try, but that should read "sixties" (the show was in production from 1968 to 1969 and aired from 1968 to 1970, so "seventies" is really pushing it). To top it off, they quote the original album's front cover text, which notes that the album includes "The Tra La La Song," "Wait Til Tomorrow," "We're The Banana Splits" and "Soul." But wait a minute here..."Soul" isn't on this "reissue." D'oh! The back cover continues the green background from the front cover (the label also has the same green shade with the classic Banana Splits logo on it; I have to say, the label is visually attractive, at least). The back cover has the logo, listings of the songs on Side One and Side Two (which are badly in need of a proofreader), and a smaller reproduction of the front cover photo. As on the 1995 bootleg CD, "Doin' The Banana Split" is listed here as "Doin' The Banana," while "You're The Lovin' End" becomes "You're The Livin' End." The letter "I" is missing from the word "It's" in "It's A Good Day For A Parade." And so on. If you've heard the Hollywood Library CD, you know what to expect. The songs play too fast, and someone went nuts with the noise reduction, to the point where most of the songs seem to "fade up" a hair too late, while the fade-outs tend to sound distant and echoey. It'll suffice if this is absolutely the only version of this album you can find, but I can't recommend it as a decent representation of what these songs are supposed to sound like. Track listing: * Side 1 ** The Tra La La Song (Album version) ** We're The Banana Splits ** I'm Gonna Find A Cave ** This Spot ** Doin' The Banana Split ** Wait Til Tomorrow ** You're The Lovin' End ** Toy Piano Melody * Side 2 ** In New Orleans ** Two Ton Tessie ** Long Live Love (originally a non-LP Decca single) ** Don't Go Away -- Go-Go Girl ** It's A Good Day For A Parade (originally released on the Kellogg's EP set) ** Pretty Painted Carousel (B-side of "Long Live Love") ** I Enjoy Being A Boy (originally released on the Kellogg's EP set) ** The Tra La La Song (Single version) Unreleased Songs Used On The TV Series * Doin' The Banana Split (Barry White) (Alternate vocal) (Show #2, 9/14/1968) * The Show Must Go On (Jimmy Radcliffe/Carl Spencer) (Show #2, 9/14/1968) * Adam Had 'Em (Joey Brooks/Jimmy Radcliffe) (Show #4, 9/28/1968) * I'd Be A Millionaire (Al Kooper/Bob Brass/Irwin Levine) (Show #6, 10/12/1968) * The Beautiful Calliopa (N.B. Winkless, Jr./Hoyt Curtin) (Alternate Version) (Show #11, 11/16/1968) * A Place For The Music To Come Out (Hoyt Curtin/Joseph Barbera/William Hanna) (Show #13, 11/30/1968) * You Had Your Chance (Luther Dixon/George Kerr) (Show #15, 12/14/1968) The Banana Splits On CD As of this writing, Banana Splits songs have appeared on a handful of various artists compilation CDs, and a promotional CD single of "The Tra La La Song" was issued in the UK in 1996 as a tie-in with a video compilation. No full-length Splits CDs have been officially released, but a bootleg compilation appeared in 1995, which included all the tracks from the We're The Banana Splits album along with eight non-LP tracks from singles and EPs: Hollywood Library HL 75075 (1995) (Bootleg) - We're The Banana Splits/Here Come The Beagles Track Listing: * The following songs are by The Banana Splits: ** The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana) (Album version) ** We're The Banana Splits ** I'm Gonna Find A Cave ** This Spot ** Doin' The Banana Split (listed as "Doin' The Banana") ** Wait Til Tomorrow ** You're The Lovin' End ** Toy Piano Melody ** In New Orleans ** Two-Ton Tessie ** Long Live Love ** Don't Go Away--Go-Go Girl ** It's A Good Day For A Parade ** Pretty Painted Carousel ** I Enjoy Being A Boy (In Love With You) ** The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana) (Single version) * The following songs are by The Beagles--Total TV characters completely unrelated to The Banana Splits: ** Looking For The Beagles ** Sharing Wishes ** I'd Join The Foreign Legion ** What More Can I Do? ** Be The Captain ** Humpty Dumpty ** Thanks To The Man On The Moon ** I Wanna Capture You ** Indian Love Dance ** You Satisfy * The following songs are by The Banana Splits: ** That's The Pretty Part Of You ** The Very First Kid On My Block ** The Beautiful Calliopa ** Let Me Remember You Smiling ** Soul Notes * This is a very frustrating CD. On one hand, it serves as a complete compendium of every Banana Splits song ever officially released on records (and even includes the rare "Long Live Love"/"Pretty Painted Carousel" Decca single). The graphics (using artwork from various record sleeves) are beautifully done. It is a professionally-pressed silver disc (not a CD-R) and the disc itself even has the artwork from the Kellogg's mailer with the drawing of Fleegle holding two 45s. However, the sound quality leaves much to be desired. All tracks are mastered from original vinyl (or copied from something that was copied somewhere down the line from original vinyl), with surface noise masked by some very heavy-handed noise reduction, resulting in a distant sound with lots of echo, especially on the fades of certain songs. Additionally, there is no rhyme or reason to the sequencing at all (though the compilers get points for kicking the CD off with "The Tra La La Song"), with single sides and Kellogg's EP cuts mixed in with album tracks, then pausing for an entire album's worth of songs by The Beagles, before concluding with five more Banana Splits songs (four from the second Kellogg's disc and one final We're The Banana Splits album track). The Beagles is a rare and unusual cartoon, but the songs really don't fit in with the Banana Splits and their inclusion disrupts the flow of this CD. (Songs from the We're The Banana Splits album also seem to play a little too fast, which may be an artifact of the mastering of the original Decca album back in 1968.) Turner Entertainment UK promo release (1996) - The Tra La La Song (CD single) Notes * The artwork closely resembles that of the UK The Banana Splits Unpeeled video release, which was issued at the same time. This version of "The Tra La La Song" is a vintage mono mix originally used on the first-run showings of the Season 1 episodes, with one round of "Tra-la-las" edited towards the beginning and a couple of extra beats cut in after each verse. It's a clean take with no overdubbed sound effects. This version of "The Tra La La Song" also appeared on a US compilation CD, Television's Greatest Hits Volume 4: In Living Color. Rhino R2 71910 (1995) - Tube Tunes Volume One: The 70s Notes * Includes the single version of "The Tra La La Song," possibly from a master tape source (the track is credited to MCA Records). This is probably the first CD ever released containing any Banana Splits music. Varese Sarabande VSD-5719 (1996) - Bubblegum Classics Volume Three Notes * Includes "I Enjoy Being A Boy (In Love With You)," mastered from a record. Varese Sarabande 302 066 132 2 (2000) - 25 All-Time Greatest Bubblegum Hits: The Ultimate Collection Notes * Includes "Wait Til Tomorrow" (mastered from the Hollywood Library bootleg CD). Category:Hanna-Barbera lists Category:The Banana Splits Category:The Funtastic Index